No they didn't. Yes, they did.

In the November 2010 volume of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Thomas Lehman and Steven Wick published an article naming and describing a new type of fossil. They call it Chupacabrachelys complexus. They actually named it after the mythical chupacabra.
So now you must be thinking, it must be some vicious, fangy, meat-eating, terrible monster right? Wrong. Chupacabrachelys means "Chupacabra shell". It's a turtle. It's not even a vicious spiky turtle. It just has a narrow head that "resembles that of a mangy coyote believed to be responsible for chupacabra sightings in South Texas during 2008".
Also, complexus isn't the species name because it's necessarily complex either, it's after the Blue Man Group album 'The Complex' which the researchers listened to while collecting and preparing the turtle.

Watch out,

Dan

Who is Gaidal Cain?

There has been a lot of speculation as to who Gaidal Cain has been reborn as in the Wheel of Time Universe. I haven't seen anyone else say this, so I wanted to get it out there first. I think that Gaidal Cain was reborn as Jur and Sora Grady's son Gadren. In Towers of Midnight, Grady tells Perrin (I think it was Perrin) that his young son is ugly, but he loves him still.

Gaidal Cain is Gadren Grady,

Dan

P.S. After a little more searching, I found some people had already postulated this. Oh well. RAFO

Sphenocoelus intermedius Part 2

This summer some of my co-workers found a little canyon that was surprisingly fossiliferous. (Fossiliferous means containing lots of fossils.) Each time it was revisited, more and better fossils were found. We first started calling it Fossil Canyon, but eventually we settled on Magic Canyon. This skull is the second we found and collected from Magic Canyon. It's from a species called Sphenocoelus intermedius.

The block was much larger and I don't have a photo of it before I started prep (Notice all the rubble around the block). This photo was taken when I first discovered bone (the darker gray patch in the middle left).
End of work on Day 1
Day 2

Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6 - Work complete!

We collected 2 other things from Magic Canyon, (though there are more than would merit returning). I already prepared another skull, but don't presently have all the photos of it. I'll post it when I get them. The third thing is a remarkably complete skeleton of a new lizard. I'm currently working on preparing it.

Oompa Loompa Doompa Dee-Do,

Dan

What does 63 mean?

A conversation this morning.

Grace: Dad, what does 63 mean?
Dan: 63 is a number. 63 is 9 times 7.
Faith: Sometimes you have a hard time speaking in layman's terms.
Dan: How am I supposed to answer that question?
Faith: What was the question?
Dan: "What does 63 mean?"

What DOES 63 mean?,

Dan

Horses for Susie

Neigh,

Dan

My Life According to Spin Doctors

Instructions: Using only song names from one artist, answer these questions, without repeating songs.

Pick Your Artist. Spin Doctors

Are you a male or female? The Man

Describe yourself. Waiting for the Blow

How do you feel? Off My Line

Describe where you currently live. Someday All This Will Be Road

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Where Angels Fear to Tread

Favorite method of transportation? Freeway of the Plains

Who is your best friend? Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Fill in the blank. You and your best friends are _Genuine_.

What's the weather like? Vampires in the Sun

What is your favorite time of day? Tonight You Could Steal Me Away

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? Beasts in the Woods

What is life to you? Happily Ever After

What is your fear? She Used to Be Mine

What is the best advice you have to give? You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast

Thought for the Day? Tomorrow Can Pay the Rent

How I would like to die? Dodging Assassins

What is your soul's present condition? The Bigger I Laugh, the Harder I Cry

What is your motto? You've Got to Believe in Something

Gone Mad,

Dan

For Work

At work, I've been working on extracting a skull (Sphenocoelus hyognathus?) in a wash for the past few days and my friend and coworker, Garrett, was exploring down the wash and he found another skull (Achaenodon uintense). In the first photo it's above and to the left of the gloves. In the second photo, you can see the teeth and basicranium (bottom and back of the head) poking out of the rock. Piggies at play,

Dan

For School

I just needed a link to this photo for my first assignment in grad school.


Cleaning up spilled milk,

Dan

Dem Bones

Here is a humerus a coworker began and I finished. It was found near the two skulls I prepared. I think it belongs to the Sphenocoelus intermedius but it could be something completely different.This is the humerus that besieged me. It's from a completely different area, but it belongs to an Amynodon advenus.This is an astragalus (ankle bone) which was found practically articulated to the next fossil.
These next two photos are of an atlas (first neck bone after the skull). The astragalus was jammed up right underneath it on the right side. As I prepared it, I had a hard time figuring out what the bone was because I thought the two were one.
I can't get a positive ID on these two, but I suspect that they're also from an Amynodon advenus.
I'm also in the process of preparing two skulls, one at BYU, and another in Vernal. I know the one at BYU is an Amynodon and I'm pretty sure the other one is too. One of my other coworkers prepared another Amynodon skull earlier this year so that's four. I wonder how many more we'll find before the year is out.

Rollin' with the rhinos,

Dan

Sphenocoelus intermedius

I present to you the second skull of which I so recently spoke. This guy was a lot harder to remove from the matrix in the field. It was in a large boulder which had fallen off the main outcrop which we had to reduce to a size we could manually carry out to a vehicle. It's kind of hard to see in this photo from the field, but trust me, it's there.I didn't begin taking photos of the preparation until the third day. This series is from the ventral (bottom looking up) view. Day 3Day 4Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9 (Work Complete!) I left all that matrix (rock) because the only thing holding the front of the skull to the back is the right palatine-pterygoid flange (thin wall of bone in the back of the throat).
Occlusal View (Teeth Detail)
Right Lateral View
For how much of this guy was missing and how battered it looked in the field, I'm very pleased with how well preserved the rest of it is. It's missing whole front top of the skull, incisors, canines, right first and second premolars, left first premolar, both zygomatic arches and a few other small things. The whole back of the skull is complete and in really good shape and all the remaining teeth look fantastic.
There are two leading brontothere researchers, Mader and Milbachler. Mader would call this skull Sphenocoelus intermedius, but Milbachler would call it Dolichorhinus hyognathus. I tend to side with Mader's observations, but Milbachler's name sounds cooler.

Whining,

Dan